This is the last straw. We, all of us regardless of political stripe, have to take this into the streets. I’ve written to my own local paper, though I don’t know if they’ll run it. Please write a letter to the editor and write or call all your representatives to protest this shameful behavior. Please make sure you read the “twist” at the bottom.
Speaker Dennis Hastert has extended the holiday break for the US House of Representatives until Jan. 31, which is two weeks longer than their usual vacation, and just after voting themselves a raise, no less.
Scores of thousands of our citizens in New Orleans are still homeless and destitute, and the aid money is being mismanaged horribly. Congress is lowering capital gains and estate taxes to save rich people a bundle, and to pay for it, they’re cutting food stamps, education programs, and health care programs. Poverty is at an all-time high and forty million people in this country can’t afford to take their sick child to a doctor. Despite our nation facing these grave, urgent challenges, Mr. Hastert sees fit to double the House’s holiday time.
Congress is taking over a month off, most appallingly of all, while 160,000 US soldiers get no break at all, toiling and dying in the Iraqi desert 10.000 miles from their worried families.
The final twist? Evidently Hastert’s extension of the break is to allow Rep. Tom Delay more time to fight his legal charges and extend his majority leader status, which can’t expire until the House is back in session.
Steve Relles